A quick background – on our internal social-media page, Yammer, there’s a rather lively discussion in place about whether Softtek is an innovative company. The comments on this thread suggest that Softtek can take on big challenges and only parts of the organization remain innovative.
At Innoventures, we often ask, whether we are an innovating company – not necessarily an innovative one. We aim to continuously stretch the limits of status quo by introducing meaningful improvements, advancements, or sometimes adjustments. Adjacent possibilities, to us, are very real.
Innovating In a Box
For the past few days, I have been wondering whether it’s so bad to innovate in a box. In some ways, that’s what we do. We stay within a box and work to make the box bigger and stronger.
Years ago, perhaps still in high school, I remember taking derivatives of the volume for cubes or spheres growing as a function of time. In the case of our box – the box we innovate within, the equation is that the volume is equal to the cube of the sides. Taking the derivative clearly suggests that the volume grows as an exponential function. Dare we suggest that growing our box may be a viable, long-term strategy?
Innovating within a box is not a terrible thing, although most entrepreneurs will clearly disagree. The function of entrepreneurs is entirely to challenge the box and find ways to destroy existing boxes to replace with new and exciting ones. Of course, that’s how the big changes happen.
About two decades ago, Steve Jobs had said, “Things don’t have to change the world to be important.” That’s the premise we are running with. There are several important innovations or improvements we continuously seek to offer that, in reality, won’t change the world.
Examples of Small Changes
Currently, I am engaged in a conversation with several thought leaders about in-the-box advancements. Small, identified solutions – ranging from improved user interface, easier-to-use dashboards, or better mobile integration are very real innovations that we seek to offer. Certainly, these won’t change the world. However, they will make the world an easier place for our enterprise customers.
